by sinne, no Covenant can passe betwixt them, no reconciliation can be expected, no pardon obtained, but in and through a mediatour. Sinnes were never remitted unto any man, no man was ever adopted into the place and condition of a sonne, by grace and adoption, but in him alone, who is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever, Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Act. 4. 12. Heb. 13. 8.
The fall Actus nostrae liberationis divinam bonitatem causam habet. Sed aliter actus, exactio, nimirum paenae per modum satisfactionis causam eam habet, quae ad paenam exegendam irritat, id autem est peccatum.of our first parents was occasion of this Covenant: for God suffered him to slip, that he might manifest the riches of his mercy in mans recovery. Mercy freeing man from misery possible might have taken place before transgression, and have discovered it selfe in the preventing of sinne, and so of misery: but it seemed good unto Almighty God to suffer misery to enter upon man through sinne, that he might make knowne the infinite riches of his mercy, in succouring and lifting him up, being fallen and plunged into a state remedilesse and desperate for ought he knew. Besides, we may conceive, that Almighty God, upon just grounds disdaining, that such a base creature falne by pride, should thus upon advantage of the mutability of his reasonable creature, ruinate the whole frame of the Creation, and trample the glory of his name under foot: and withall looking upon the Chaos which sinne had brought, and would further make, if some speedy remedy was not provided; did out of his infinite and boundlesse love to man (though in the transgression,) and just and dreadfull indignation against Sathan, give forth this gratious and free Covenant.
The forme of this Covenant stands in gratious and free promises of all good to be repaired, restored, augmented, and a restipulation of such duties as will stand with free grace and mercy. For the Covenant of Grace doth not exclude all conditions, but such as will not stand with grace. The Covenant which was made of free love, when we lay wallowing in our blood, and which calls for nothing at our hands but what comes from, and shall be rewarded of meere grace, is a Covenant of grace, though it be conditionall. So the pardon of sinne is given of grace, and not for workes, though pardon be granted only to the penitent, and faith on our part, a lively, unfained and working faith be required to receive the promise.
The parties covenanting are two, and so are the parts of theCovenant,
